Today I have a Guest Post from James Tayo, hope you enjoy his business insights.
I’m here to debunk a myth that you must have heard a lot in the Internet Marketing circles. The money is in the list. Strike that, what it should be is, The money is in your relationship with the list. This is the new paradigm you should be following if you want to make it as a Top Affiliate in Internet Marketing today.
How else would someone make it into the Top 20 Affiliates in a group of people with lists 10 times bigger than his. The world evolves daily and so does the consumer. If you are still using strategies that used to work 2 years ago to promote your affiliate products, you will be crushed by your competition in no time.
A couple of years ago, you were taught to write an eBook, slap it up on a lead capture page and drive traffic and give it up for free
to build a list. Then bombard the list with offer after offer on an auto responder to make money on autopilot. Well I am sorry to say that doesn’t work anymore and so will any get rich quick tactic you may be implementing right now. The effectiveness of these tactics always expire at some point.
The only way to build a sustainable business that will generate an income for you is to be genuinely interested in what your customer wants and offering them quality products that will help their situation. This helps you build a relationship with your list. That has been the fundamentals of doing business for thousands of years and it is not about to change now.
How can you build a relationship with your list?
Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People is packed with tons of wisdom that can be used in almost any facet of life. Here are 4 points I extracted from the book that can help you start building a relationship with your list today.
Become genuinely interested in other people
Do not focus always on the money, the people on your list are humans with feelings too. People these days can smell a pitch from a mile away. If your pitch will address their urgent needs right now, they will buy what you are promoting regardless of how you pitch it. But if you are promoting a product just because the affiliate commissions are great but offer no value, you will put off the people on your list and that will make them less responsive.
Talk in the terms of the other man’s interest
Start seeing your list like a bank account. If you pitch to your list, you make a withdrawal. If you offer valuable content for free, you make a deposit. So now what happens when you withdraw from an account constantly? It becomes overdrawn and your card gets declined. Make sure you give away mind-blowing content to your list so when the time comes to pitch your offer, they gladly take you up on it.
Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely
I hate the word “list” because it makes it look like the people on that list are just statistics. Some people call it subscribers, some call it a tribe or whatever euphemism that may exist out there. The smart marketer knows that each person likes to feel important. You can do this with something as simple as personally replying to every email you receive or twitter reply/retweet you get. If you want to find out how to do this, just follow John Paul’s twitter stream.
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
This related to the previous point of making people feel important. Listening to people not only makes them feel important, it also gives you free, valuable, insider-only research into their minds and what they want right now. The best products are the ones that solve an urgent need or an irrational passion. The only way to find out what these needs and passions are, is to listen to your audience. Send emails asking them to ask you any question and answer them on your blog. It is amazing how much good karma you can generate with those two actions.
The action of asking a question will make them go “Oh my God, he really is interested in me”.
The action of actually answering the question will make them feel important and respect you even more.
The important person on your list that knows you care about them is worth 200 cold people that receive the odd affiliate offer from you every week.
Do you have more questions about this, please ask them in the comments and I will answer them. I am genuinely interested in what you have to say.
(Did you get the practice what you preach angle in that statement? 
)
About Author: James Tayo runs a blog for entrepreneurs at Entrepreneur Blog’r. He shares tips on how you can build a profitable business online by getting customers through email list building and turn them into raving fans.
- Category: Affiliate Marketing
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